You Don’t Own Me: A Selection of Queer Music Before Stonewall

Though perhaps not as loud as what we know today, queerness has always been alive in music, hopeful and radiant and revolutionary and gentle.

To Return (A Car Ride, A Selection)

How exactly do we hold our distance while also holding the truth of others’ shared humanity? How do we reach out and still remain safe?

Selections, MusicHana WidermanOctober 6, 2020Steve Benjamins, John Mayer, Weezer, Dijon, Billy Lemos, Jakubi

The Sforzando Letters (a selection)

I write, as Roethke says, "to solve all the leaps of light." I write to do with letters what Thelonious Monk did with piano keys.

Songs for the Sforzando Issue (a selection)

The songs our team has been spinning as we work to curate your—& our own—burning & cracking & aching into something beautiful for you.

How to Survive Social Distancing (A Selection)

Now, I don’t know how to write about the spring without writing about the sickness. It’s a tricky and selfish thing.

Spotlighting Trans, Nonbinary and Gender Non-Conforming Artists: A Selection

“Can’t forget that I’m a miracle, it’s true”, he sings, “don’t you forget you’re a miracle too”—and it’s damn near impossible not to believe him.

Politics, Music, SelectionsAmrita ChakrabortyFebruary 25, 2020Dorian Electra, Angel Haze, Shea Diamond, SOPHIE, Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers, Against Me!, Ah Mer Ah Su, Linn da Quebrada, Shawnee, Tunde Olaniran, Rae Spoon

Strong Medicine: A Selection of the Radical Roots of Country Music

I may come from country people, but I’m not country, I used to tell myself.

Music, Politics, SelectionsLexi CovalsenFebruary 11, 2020Luke Bryan, The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Ken Burn, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn

& I'll Cry If I Want To: A Selection of the Sad Girl in Music

We all have our Sad Girl songs—the ones that hit right at the center of our biggest shames, our runny mascara nights, our whispers from the alleyway.

Art, Music, SelectionsLexi CovalsenSeptember 11, 2019Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Lana Del Rey, Audrey Wollen, Lesley Gore, Marina and the Diamonds, Sky Ferreira, Lorde, SZA, Donna Tartt

Singing While Rome Burns (A Selection of Music for the Apocalypse)

I’ve found a catharsis in musicians’ emotional responses to the strife in the world right now, and in their visions of what might spring from the ashes.

Selections, MusicAmrita ChakrabortyJuly 30, 2019Hozier, Mavis Staples, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, James Brown, Janelle Monáe, Cage the Elephant, Sufjan Stevens, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bastille, Florence + the Machine, the 1975, Donald Trump, St. Vincent, Leonard Cohen, Richard Siken

That Summer Feeling (a selection, a remembering)

The summer of 2016 belongs to “Self Control,” white brick walls, the rumble of the MARTA train—to the warmth and the horror of being alone in a city.

Selections, MusicLexi CovalsenJuly 15, 2019Richard Ayoade, Matt Berninger, Alex Turner, the National, St. Vincent, Sylvia Plath, the Front Bottoms, Frank Ocean, Lorde, Rostam